SALTAIRE is in the old West Riding, a former model village - though, of course, it was full scale - built by mill owner Sir Titus Salt so that his workers could get the hell out of Bradford.

"Every other factory town in England is paradise compared to that hole," wrote one of Salt's contemporaries. "In Bradford you think you are lodging with the devil incarnate."

Sir Titus provided something better. Run of the mill it wasn't.

Salts not only had a well known amateur football team but a cricket ground described by the great West Indian Sir Learie Constantine (who'd never played at Rievaulx Abbey, or at Spout House) as the most beautiful in the North.

Jim Laker represented Saltaire, too, but was considered inadequate by Yorkshiremen and went to spin his trade in the south.

Biggest in Europe in the 1850s, Salt's Mill covered 17 acres and produced 18 miles of cloth a day from 1,200 looms. The 775 house village, geometrically laid out, had neither pub, police station nor pawn shop.

It still sits by the Leeds-Liverpool canal, home of Britain's only harmonium museum, of a David Hockney gallery, a pretty park, a stupendous Roman classical church and a statue of the founder, who has an Edward Lear beard.

It all makes for a fascinating day out, as the John North column observed in the summer of 1998 - but there is reason, of course, for a further pinch of Salt's.

RECENT columns have been applying both educational Elastoplast and First Aid in English, in which connection the gloriously named Mr Bigland Capstick in Barnard Castle sends an extract from the Saltaire school calendar of 1885-86.

"Both boys and girls were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, English grammar, composition and literature, history (ancient and modern), geography (physical and political), Latin, French and German (language and literature), political economy, drawing (freehand, landscape and model) and class singing.

"The boys took lessons in gymnastics, drawing (mechanical) and natural science, with experimental work. The extras for girls were harmony with class singing, callisthenics, domestic economy and the laws of health with practical needlework."

Perhaps, muses Mr Bigland, his need of educational Elastoplast would not be so great, had he been a scholar at Saltaire.

WELL intentioned but enough to chill the poor old bones, Peter Crawforth in Chilton, near Ferryhill, sends a batch of Durham County Council 11+ papers - "Admission of Pupils to Grammar Schools" - from the 1950s.

Among them is the very English paper which Gadfly faced on February 4, 1958 - "marks will be deducted for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation" warned the rubric, pertinently, though not (happily) for poor handwriting.

Kids knew it as sitting the scholarship. Everyone tackled the "first half", those who passed - 47 of the 50 in Tom Coates's class at Tin Tacks in Shildon - were bussed to Bishop Auckland, or some other grammar school, to essay part two.

The experience was as fearful as the expectation of it. Grammar school masters wore academic gowns and (seemingly) ferocious expressions and had reputations that preceded them like a watershed warning to the unwary.

Almost half a century later, the English still seems fairly easy - probably it had to be - though the arithmetic offered perhaps greater demands on scholarship.

Readers are therefore invited to tackle these three questions from the 11+ paper of February 5, 1957, and with only two caveats - a) precious little time was allowed and b) it was still only the first half.

1. Two cyclists set off from the same place and follow the same route. The first cyclist is slower than the second. The first leaves the starting point at 10.30am and travels at 18mph. The second leaves the starting point 1 hour 10 minutes later and catches up with the first after travelling three hours. What is the rate of travel of the second cyclist in miles per hour?

2. On a journey of 441 miles, a car used 12 gallons one quart (12.25 gallons) of petrol. Calculate the average distance travelled on one gallon of petrol.

What distance in miles and furlongs could be covered on 3 gallons 3 pints of petrol?

3. A rectangular lawn is 24 yards long and 18 yards wide. From the middle of the lawn a square flower bed is cut occupying exactly one third of the total area of the lawn.

Find (1) the length of each side of the square bed, and (2) the cost of edging the whole of the flower bed with edging pieces each 1ft 6ins long and costing 5/9d (29p) a dozen.

THE number one bus from Darlington to Tow Law travels at the approximate speed of the first cyclist in those questions and wanders like one of Mr Wordsworth's clouds.

The one and a half hours thus occupied is twice the time allowed the poor bairns to surmount the arithmetical part of the 11+ - and there were many more problems than those.

The column wishes therefore to apologise to fellow passengers on Monday lunchtime if, like steam from beneath a kettle lid, occasional expletives escaped into the innocent atmosphere whilst we tried to fathom some solutions. As recent columns have underlined, there is no guarantee whatever that the upside down answers are correct - but it didn't half help pass the journey.

PETER Crawforth, incidentally, reports that an advertising sheet has just arrived with his local paper, the Ferryhill Chapter - "Flamingoland Holiday Homes, six birth caravan to let" it says. (No sextuplets, please, we're British.)

ELEVEN-plus? Last week's column even confused its nursery rhymes, a marriage - doubtless unlawful - between Wee Willie Winkie and Goosey Goosey Gander.

"You'll never live it down," suggests Les Wheatley in Hutton Rudby. "What you need is the Ladybird Book of Nursery Rhymes."

Marie Lloyd kindly e-mails both rhymes in full but is unable ("though I'm one of them") to shed light on the meaning of the phrase "left footer" - which was the object of the exercise.

In any case, it was Goosey Goosey Gander, not the wilfully traduced Wee Willie, who took the old man by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

Our apologies to Mr Winkie.

LEFT foot forward in South Africa, Phil Westberg sends a theory which (he says) came to him over a couple of ice cold Castles - though he still misses his Strongarm back in Darlington. Phil's explanation, so far as briefly it may be embraced, involves Ann Boleyn - who, he swears, had six fingers on her left hand. If readers can confirm this curious configuration, we may proceed further.

...and finally, a heavy post from Malcolm Raine in Byers Green, near Spennymoor, includes - by way of necessary preamble - a list of English words and their alternative meaning in Ashington.

Those who don't know the sort of thing should think of an interview with Jackie Charlton - skirt: Scottish native; terrain: railway rolling stock; sex: things for carrying coal. With the glossary comes a mid-Northumbrian joke and since today's column has been a bit taxing on the grey matter, we reproduce it in all its glory.

An Ashington elephant sees a turtle basking on a rock and hurls it violently across the river.

"Why on earth did you do that?" asks a passing giraffe.

"Why, fifty fower year ago," says the Ashington elephant, "that little bugger bit us on the trunk while aa wez havin' a drink o' watter."

"Amazing," says the giraffe, "what a memory you must have."

"Oh aye," says the elephant, "turtle recall."

More Salt's on the tale next week.

Published: 17/04/2002